Swiss Payment Card Processor Sticks with IDEMIA EMV Chips

Swiss payment card processor SIX Payment Services is sticking with IDEMIA for its EMV chip cards.

Their partnership first formed several years ago between SIX Payment Services and Oberthur Technologies, which combined with Safran Identity & Security last year to form what is now IDEMIA. The latter was contracted to supply EMV chips to SIX Payment Services from 2012 to 2016, and was selected again to provide EMV chips between 2016 and 2019, with SIX Payment Services having evaluated two potential suppliers ahead of each period. Thus the selection of IDEMIA for a third consecutive production period serves as a strong vote of confidence for the company, which will provide EMV chips to SIX Payment Services between 2020 and 2023.

In a statement announcing this latest contract win, IDEMIA said the new chips will be based on the EMVCo Common Payment Application specification, the Visa Contactless Payment Specification, and the MasterCard PayPass specification. It will, of course, support contact or contactless payment interfaces.

The statement made no mention of biometric payment cards, but IDEMIA is an active player in this emerging area, having launched a Japanese trial of its new F-Code payment card, which features an integrated fingerprint sensor for user authentication at the time of a transaction. The biometric system is designed to replace the PIN-based authentication used with common EMV chip cards.